Bargaining Bulletin #4: Progress on some proposals but uncertainty about financial mandate

Dear colleagues,

Your bargaining committee met the administration on Friday, 13 February, for 3 hours. We worked on 5 CFA proposals and 3 from the administration, and reached tentative agreement on two minor proposals. However, the administration is still unwilling to talk about any CFA proposal that it sees as “cost items”—the ones that would affect its budget.

One surprise on Friday was that the administration’s committee had not booked negotiation dates beyond 13 February. This caught our committee by surprise, since our committee had booked every second Friday from now through June. The good news is that we are working with the administration to schedule weekly meetings starting on 27 March and going to the end of June. The CFA is awaiting admin's agreement to this schedule.

The next scheduled meeting is on Friday, 27 March, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Discussion of “non-cost items”

We made some progress on the proposals listed below. We are, however, still waiting for substantive responses from the administration on most of the proposals we discussed last Friday. And the two proposals on which we have tentative agreement are not really new— they simply codify existing rules. So there is much work to do. 

Details on the proposals discussed on 13 February

Here are some specific details—with apologies for the inevitable union-geeky jargon. We will go through these proposals more closely with area stewards during their monthly meeting on Tuesday, 24 February. We will also check in with coordinators, chairs, and convenors in the separate “3Cs” meeting that day (both are during the CFA meeting block next week, 11:30 to 1 ).

• Change from monthly to semi-monthly pay (though this is already a statutory obligation for the administration, and has been since May 2019)

• Incorporate the right of regular faculty to “top up” their commitment level based on workload across all three terms into the body of the Collective Agreement

• Establish a joint faculty-admin committee to review our evaluation processes holistically (looking at how we gather and act on feedback about individual instructors, courses and programs, and university systems that affect teaching and learning)

• Establish a joint committee on reconciliation and decolonization (joint with reps from CFA, MoveUP, CSU, admin, and the Nations on whose territories we work—similar to a standing committee that met from the mid 2000s until it was disbanded in 2019)

• A fast-track “troubleshooter” arbitration process for grievances (aiming to break through the logjam of disputes about, for example, regularization) 

We don’t want to over-promise on the last three proposals. The administration seemed reluctant to entertain the idea of a holistic approach to reviewing the evaluation process, and at the moment opposes the establishment of a joint committee on decolonization. We pushed back on both points, and have shared with the admin team that their objection to the joint committee on decolonization uses language that strikes us as highly colonial. We expect a response at the next bargaining meeting, and are hopeful that they will change their minds. 

It was actually the administration that proposed the troubleshooter in this round, though their troubleshooter proposal uses the language the CFA prepared in 2022 as part of the settlement of grievances about directors or AVPs being hired to play the role of deans for some departments. The admin’s proposal is to use the troubleshooter only where both parties agree to use it, which would give the admin a veto on its use for any particular dispute. The CFA has proposed that we use it for all grievances on a pilot-project basis for 3 years, after which we could discontinue it if it does not work. We are awaiting their response. 

The CFA also responded to two proposals from the administration, noting that there is no apparent need to amend the Collective Agreement as they have proposed. We see the concerns they have raised as being easily addressed through improved HR procedures. These admin proposals were about:

• Timing of scale placement (the admin does not want to make these retroactive to the term in which the placement currently take effect; instead they want the scale placement to start in the term in which they receive all the relevant scale-placement information from the member), and

• Timing of new regular appointments (the admin wanted to change the target date for confirming appointments from 31 May to 30 April, even though the appointments don’t take effect until 1 September) 

We hope this information is useful to you. The main theme is that we remain hopeful that we can achieve some good things in this round, but it is too early to say, especially when it comes to financial items.

We will update you as we approach the next meeting, on 27 March 2026.

In solidarity,

Your bargaining team,

Doug Alards-Tomalin, Dwayne Beaver, Michael Begg, Chelsea Bell Eady, Iris Gordon, Ferdos Jamali, Reini Klein, and FPSE representatives Monica Staff and Robin Wylie

Bargaining Bulletin #3: Initial talks begin

Dear members, 

Last Friday, 30 January we (your bargaining team) met with the administration’s bargaining team for the first time since we initially exchanged proposals on 16 January. 

In this meeting we began to set the tone for bargaining on “non-monetary” proposals (see below for what that means). It was a positive meeting, but still exploratory. We have only just begun to get into the substance of the proposals. 

We started with responses to the admin team’s questions about CFA proposals. Then we began negotiation of two specific proposals: to (1) establish a joint committee to study our evaluation process and make recommendations for improvements (2) create a “troubleshooter” grievance process that has the potential to dramatically speed up dispute resolution and break the longstanding stalemate on dozens or active disputes between faculty and the administration.

Our next meeting is on 13 February (yes, a Friday the 13th!). 

At that meeting the CFA team will pursue agreement on the two proposals above. We also want to begin discussion of the CFA’s proposals on decolonization, justice, equity, diversity and inclusiveness. Our goal is to build momentum by reaching agreement in these areas, before we turn to more contentious subjects like regularization. And, once the admin team has its financial mandate from the B.C. government, we will then move on to benefits improvements, fair pay for non-regulars, and other cost items.

That is our update for now, aside from the background (“bargaining 101-ish”) notes below. We are providing a more detailed briefing, with copies of the actual proposals from both sides of the tale, to your area stewards, for discussion with them. For now we are not publishing all the proposals on the website, because we want to make sure that the area stewards are familiar with the details, and can discuss them with you.

Some background: monetary vs. non-monetary, and financial mandate

We realize “non-monetary proposals” is bargaining jargon. The term means proposals that would change articles of the Collective Agreement without affecting the University’s expenses. (Speaking of the Collective Agreement, we finally have a signed version of the current complete Agreement, attached here.) Whereas monetary proposals, a.k.a. “Cost items” would either increase or decrease the University’s net expenses. Examples:

• Increasing the paramedical coverage from $750 per service to $1,500 per service – monetary

• Simplifying the regularization process – non-monetary

The admin bargaining committee is not yet willing to discuss monetary proposals, or even to ask questions about them. This is because the B.C. government is still determining how much money to provide to universities and colleges for negotiating–the “financial mandate” for negotiations. We had expected the government to have issued this financial mandate by now, but after the BCGEU negotiations secured more funding than other sectors (health care, teachers) had obtained in their negotiations, the government is reviewing its financial mandate across the public sector.

It is frustrating to not be able to talk about all of our proposals yet. However, the CFA’s list of proposals is extensive, and more than half are non-monetary. (We have 49 proposals, of which 34 are entirely or mostly non-monetary, and 15 are cost items.) At the start of the meeting, the administration commented on the number and depth of the CFA proposals, which is why we spent most of last Friday’s meeting answering their questions.

Many of the admin’s questions were practical ones about the way the Collective Agreement works. We think it was helpful to go through their questions in depth, since the conversation enabled us to ensure all the members of both committees have a shared understanding of how our CA works. This was especially valuable given that the admin’s bargaining team includes representatives from the B.C. government (the “Post-Secondary Employers’ Association”), who of course are not very familiar with our CA.

We are hoping that meeting will be a springboard into more substantive negotiation on Friday the 13th of February. And that our briefing notes to area stewards will be a springboard for discussions among faculty about this round of bargaining.

Onward and upward, in solidarity,

The Bargaining Team

Doug Alards-Tomalin, Dwayne Beaver, Michael Begg, Chelsea Bell Eady, Iris Gordon, Ferdos Jamali, Reini Klein, and FPSE representatives Monica Staff and Robin Wylie

Bargaining Bulletin #2: Proposals exchanged

Dear colleagues: Last Friday, your bargaining committee met with the administration to exchange bargaining proposals.

Talks start with a positive tone

As we reviewed with you in general meetings last fall, our proposals are focused on developing and supporting faculty and the University. We made 59 proposals in total. These include paid work for research and scholarship, improved pay and benefits, simplified regularization, improvements to the evaluation process, and a University-wide process for decolonization.

We were pleased with the tenor of the meeting, with the administration explicitly affirming their intention to bargain with us at the table in a collaborative manner as we move toward “substantive bargaining” about specific proposals in the exchanged proposal packages, which will begin on 30 January 2026.

We will discuss this round of negotiations during our general meeting today, 20 January, 11:30 to 1 pm (on Zoom). And once we have reviewed the administration’s proposals more closely, we will discuss them with area stewards and provide a more detailed explanation of them to you in an upcoming bulletin. For now, please see some notes about their proposals and our initial impressions below.

Administration’s proposals centred around cost-cutting

Unlike last round, in 2023, the administration has not proposed drastic changes such as deleting the collegial model. Our impression of their proposal package is that it primarily intends to reduce expenditures. Some of the most notable examples are:

1) Changes to Benefits that pass along more of the premium costs to our members, including proposals that would:

• Charge faculty who voluntarily reduce below part-time the cost of benefit premiums on a pro-rata basis (currently the employer is required to cover benefits for regularized employees regardless of the amount of work).

• Charge the cost of benefit premiums to the Union during job action (currently the employer covers the cost of benefits during the first month of  strike)

2) Changes to section banking that would limit overload banking for future underload to 2 sections (currently it’s 8).

3) Changes to the Benefit Trust Fund in Article 21. The administration says it is no longer in a financial position to give investment returns on 0.5% of the existing fund, even though the Collective Agreement requires this.

Despite the cost-cutting theme of many of its proposals, the administration has also tabled a few proposals that we think may spark meaningful, interest-based discussions at the table. These proposals include the creation of:

1. A joint committee on diversity, equity and inclusion

2. A faster “troubleshooter” process for addressing disputes about the collective agreement that would exist in addition to the standard grievance process

3. A review committee for proposing changes to the evaluation process

These proposals connect to some of the CFA’s proposals, which is encouraging. However, the administration’s proposals on these topics are very general, so it is too early to tell how discussion of these topics will go.

We look forward to further discussions with their bargaining team on these issues and on our substantive bargaining package, and we look forward to discussing this with the membership in more depth at our General Meeting tomorrow.

In Solidarity, The Bargaining Team

Doug Alards-Tomalin, Dwayne Beaver, Michael Begg, Chelsea Bell Eady, Iris Gordon, Ferdos Jamali, Reini Klein, and FPSE representatives Monica Staff and Robin Wylie

Bargaining Bulletin #1: Bargaining Begins!

Dear Colleagues, 

The Bargaining Committee met with the University administration on Wednesday December 3rd for our first discussion of the protocol agreement for negotiations. We established a timeline for exchanging initial proposals, which will begin in mid-January. While we will be negotiating on a wide range of topics, we mutually anchored the discussions around the primary theme of ensuring meaningful faculty input and direction in institutional decision-making, and supporting a strong and sustainable future for all. 

One key exchange worth sharing from this round is that the Bargaining Committee raised the issue of the administration’s recent practice of emailing bulletins directly to faculty following our meetings. We reminded our counterparts that CapU has a longstanding bargaining principle, historically reflected in every bargaining protocol, that both parties independently update their own principals about the bargaining process. 

We’re pleased to report that the administration modified its approach in response to our concerns. The administration has offered to provide the CFA bargaining team with 24 hours’ notice before issuing their releases, giving us the opportunity to review and respond as needed. We have just received their written proposal, and hope to reach agreement on the protocol soon. 

We will endeavour to provide timely updates to the membership after each meeting. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact any member of the bargaining team. 

In Solidarity,

CFA bargaining team, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Dwayne Beaver, Michael Begg, Chelsea Bell Eady, Iris Gordon, and Ferdos Jamali

August pay: solution for RPTs who were underpaid

Dear colleagues: we are following up on the problems many regular part-time faculty have encountered with pay for August. We met with HR, and believe we have found a solution to get you the pay you deserve.

 As we advised you on 30 August, it turns out that the administration chose to pay regular faculty in August based on their commitment level, regardless of their workload in 2023/24. That was contrary to the discussions the CFA had with HR last May.

 We met with HR about this last week and are happy to report that they are now willing to provide the additional pay - though they want additional paperwork from some faculty (see below). This is the response we received late on Tuesday:

University’s Approach to Compensation for the August 2024 Transition Month

Compensation at Commitment Level:

Faculty will be compensated based on their commitment level for the 2023/24 academic year.

 Additional PD Compensation:

Faculty members who have completed professional development (PD) beyond their 2023/24 commitment level during the August 2024 transition month will be compensated for those additional hours, provided the PD proposal was submitted and approved by their Dean/Director/AVP. The University will require these approved PD proposals to confirm the additional hours of PD completed beyond their 2023/24 commitment level.

 How to implement this:

If you are an RFT or an RPT who worked your commitment level in 2023/24, you do not need to do anything different. The PD report we had already advised you to submit through your department is fine.

 If you are an RPT who worked above your commitment level in 2023/24, we ask that you complete two tasks, which HR is insisting on to justify topping up your August pay. They are only asking this for RPTs who worked above commitment last year.

1) Please make sure your 2023/24 PD report includes the following:

Due to the change in academic year, I performed two weeks’ worth of additional PD, pro rata to my workload in 2023/24, for a total of ___ days, including creative and scholarly activity and/or research in the period May through August 2024.

This additional PD is at the rate of 1.25 days per section. So, for example, if you worked a total of 6 sections in 2023/24, you should put 7.5 days into the blank above.

2) Please complete and give to your coordinator, in a separate document (template attached—click here), a PD proposal dated in May 2024, with the text above, but changing "I performed” to “I am performing.” (This is already in the template.) Please insert the same figure in the blank. Then submit that to your coordinator along with your report on PD from the past year.

For co-ordinators: we ask that you hold off on submitting the department’s PD proposals and reports to your dean until RPTs have had a chance to provide this special May proposal.

For other regular faculty: if your PD report is already based on your 2023/24 workload rather than your commitment level, it should already match the recommended text above. We just ask that you check to make sure your report on extra PD is based on your actual workload. HR is not asking for a special May PD report from anyone except RPTs who worked above commitment last year.

We regret the inconvenience of this procedure. We have explained to HR that the special PD proposal is not the way faculty propose and report PD, but they are insisting. Rather than drag this into a grievance, we want to secure the money for you asap. This is the best way to do so.

If you have questions, please attend the CFA general meeting on 17 September at 11:30 (here is the zoom link for this and all CFA GMs, third Tuesday of each month).

When will I receive the adjustment in Pay?

Since payroll for September is fixed this week, your pay for September won't include extra pay. We are talking with HR about a separate payment (not waiting until October payday), but first we have to confirm this process with them. However, we anticipate that they won’t authorize the payment until deans have received PD reports from departments.

We regret the continuing challenge of ensuring fair pay during the adjustment to the academic year. We hope that this will finally resolve the issue so we can move on and focus on what we are here to do: create a great community of teaching, learning, and scholarship.

 In solidarity,

Tim Acton, CFA president, and CFA stewards Michael Begg, Doug Alards-Tomalin, and Diana Twiss

Bulletin ~ Collective Agreement: Updates on changes to pay and benefits

Dear members: we are writing to update you on the implementation of the new Collective Agreement, focusing here on salaries (including retro pay) and benefits. The short version is that the administration expects that our February pay will be at the new rates and will include our retro pay; and that our Canada Life benefits have not been updated yet.

Our other Collective Agreement updates, including the effect of the change in the academic year, are in the document we sent last month (linked here).

 Salary 

The HR department has told us that the administration will be sending an announcement about salaries and retro pay. We have not seen the draft announcement yet and don’t know the timing, but wanted to update you with what we do know:

The Finance department has advised that they are implementing our new salary rates on our February pay. That pay deposit should also include our retro pay for April 2022 through January 2024 (they are doing final coding for this now). The retro will be included with our February wages as one payment. This will, unfortunately, make it difficult for members to check that the retro payment is accurate.

The good news is that in response to the CFA’s grievance about the lack of information on pay stubs, the employer has hired a computer programmer to create monthly pay descriptions that set out how our pay is calculated each month. This pay description will be provided separately from the pay stub itself, but we are expecting it to accompany our monthly payments—once it is ready. 

Finance tells us that they are hopeful that the pay description will be ready for our February pay, and that it will break down our normal pay and the retro pay. We have not yet received confirmation of whether the pay description will be ready for February. When the pay description is working, the administration says it will show faculty pay details going back approximately two years.

Regarding tax and other deductions: we asked HR and Finance again about options for minimizing a disproportionate tax deduction on our February pay due to the addition of retro. They have now advised that there are no options. Their only suggestion is for members to maximize their RRSP contributions. However, this won’t affect the amount of tax deducted on our February pay.

We have asked the Finance department to prepare an explanation of the calculation of deductions for taxes, CPP, EI, etc. and to post that along with a Q&A for faculty to read.

 Benefits

Although we are now entitled to the new benefits coverages (see again our summary of the changes), Canada Life won’t reimburse us based on the new benefits until the administration has updated the contract. 

Expenses you incur now that rely on the new benefits will be reimbursed, but not until the contract is updated.

The HR department has not notified us of the timeline for updating the contract. 

 In solidarity,

CFA stewards Michael Begg and Diana Twiss

Bargaining Bulletin #23

New Collective Agreement: What you need to know 

Dear members: we have attached our list of the changes to the 2022-25 Collective Agreement, with notes on how they will be implemented, and what you need to do to–for example–take advantage of improvements to benefits. 

We hope the attachment will be helpful. The rest of this bulletin is about:

• volunteers for new committees 

• making sure former faculty receive their retro. pay, and

• updating the full Collective Agreement

Committee callout 

The new Collective Agreement creates two committees. We need to appoint CFA reps to those committees, as well as to an existing committee that has long been dormant. Here are the committees (see the document linked above for terms of reference):

• Committee on allocation of research and workshop funding under the new Agreement (1 volunteer needed): an ongoing committee, though its main work will be this spring

• Committee on vacation scheduling and banking (up to 4 volunteers): a short-term committee to provide recommendations by end of fall 2024

• Joint Benefits Rehabilitation Committee (2 or 3 members needed): This is an existing standing committee that has not had members or met for years. We think reactivating it will help us improve benefits, particularly paramedical coverage, in the next round. 

The details on these committees and the other changes to the Collective Agreement are at the end of the summary of changes linked in the first sentence of this bulletin.

To look at the exact language describing these committees (and all other changes from this round), you can see the final agreement from this round of negotiations by clicking here. You can also see our new salary rates here.

Notice to former members about retroactive payments

The new Agreement requires the University administration to send written notice to all former faculty, stating that they are entitled to retroactive payment for wage increases if they worked at CapU between 1 April 2022 and January 2024. Those letters will go out this Friday, 26 January. 

Current faculty don’t need to do anything–

you will receive retroactive pay by direct deposit at the end of February.

Although the employer is writing to all former faculty, to make sure everyone receives retroactive pay, we ask you to let any former colleagues know what to do. 

All they have to do is send an email to payroll@capilanou.ca, stating that they do want their retroactive pay for April 2022 through the end of their employment, and confirming their mailing address. The University will mail a cheque (it won’t do direct deposit for former members). They should keep the email, in case there is a question later of whether they sent notice.

The estate of any faculty who passed away during that time is also entitled to retroactive pay. The member’s executor can send the email.

Updating the Collective Agreement document

We are working with HR to incorporate the changes into the full Collective Agreement. You can see the 2019-22 Agreement on the CFA website. That web page also gives you the province-wide Common Agreement, which our local Collective Agreement incorporates (we rely on it especially for additional leaves of absence and for income top-up for faculty on parental leave).

We are also preparing a Q&A page that we will send separately. We hope the attachment answers the questions we have received so far, but of course welcome more feedback and questions.

As questions occur to you, please send them to cfa@capilanou.ca.

In solidarity, CFA bargaining committee and senior stewards

Bargaining Bulletin #22

Members vote yes

on 2022-25 Collective Agreement

Dear members,

Thank you for voting on the 2022-25 Collective Agreement. We are pleased to announce that you have ratified the deal we negotiated. Of the 408 members who voted, we received 403 yes and 5 no votes. 

That means 98.8% of the votes were in favour of ratification. 

The new Agreement will be implemented once the University board of governors and the government have also ratified it.

Watch for a bulletin from us in the new year with an update on the employer’s ratification, as well as details about what the terms of the new agreement mean for you.

In the meantime, we wish you all the best over the holiday break, and look forward to seeing you in 2024! Thank you again for your support and your commitment to making Capilano a great place to work and learn together, in the collegial space protected by our Collective Agreement.

In solidarity, 

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff

Bargaining Bulletin #21

Ratification procedure

Dear CFA members, 

As a Capilano Faculty Association (CFA) member, you are registered to vote on the ratification of the 2022-2025 Collective Agreement between the Capilano Faculty Association and Capilano University. 

We are starting the voting process with this email to CFA members. 

Prior to Voting

Please visit the links below, which take you to the bargaining bulletins we sent you last Wednesday and Friday:

• Announcement of the tentative agreement, with a summary of the new pay grid and of all the amendments we have agreed on (13 Dec 2023)

• Final “settlement agreement” between the bargaining committees, setting out the agreed changes (15 Dec 2023)

Once you have reviewed these bulletins, we ask that you vote to ratify the agreement. Once you and the employer have ratified it, we can then begin working with the HR and Finance departments to implement it. Note that we will receive retroactive payment of our increase in wages (for April 2022 through now) by the second pay after the CFA and the employer have both ratified.

Voting

At 1 pm today you will receive another e-mail from “CFA” inviting you to cast your vote on ratifying the 2022-25 collective agreement. The subject line will be “Ratification of 2022-25 Collective Agreement.” Ratification voting is open from today through 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, 20 December.

We are using the most current list of employees from the administration, but it may not include all faculty hired subsequent to September 2023. If you do not receive the SimplyVoting e-mail and want to vote, please write to the cfa@capilanou.ca address to let us know.

If you have any questions about this process please contact the CFA through email at cfa@capilanou.ca

Thank-You! 

In solidarity, 

CFA Bargaining Committee,

Michael Begg (spokesperson), Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia (ex officio), and Monica Staff (FPSE representative)

Bargaining Bulletin #20

Final Agreement for ratification: Ratification vote planned for 18 to 20 December

Dear members:

The bargaining committees agreed on the "memorandum of settlement" agreement today. The agreement, which you can see by clicking this link, sets out the amendments we described in bargaining bulletin #19 on 13 December. 

As we wrote on Wednesday, we think this is a good deal, and the CFA bargaining committee recommends that you ratify it.

On Monday, 18 December, we will write to your CapU e-mail address with a link you can use to vote securely. The vote will be open for two days, until 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, 20 December. 

As soon as the agreement is ratified by our members, the CapU board, and the B.C. government, the agreement will take effect, and we will begin to receive our new wages and benefits, including retro payment for the period from April 2022 to now.

In solidarity,

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff 

Bargaining Bulletin #19

We have a deal!

Dear colleagues:

Your bargaining committee is happy to report that we have reached a tentative

agreement with the employer. The agreement provides improvements to our rights

that are worth well over $600,000/year, including a breakthrough in the scale-

placement rules for non-regular faculty.

We think it is a good deal. It is a leap beyond what seemed likely last spring, when

the employer’s proposals were mainly to delete our collegial model. And it is far

better than our position at the start of the fall, when the employer finally responded

to our monetary proposals with a proposal for nothing but a “wellness” account

worth $200,000. Thankfully, we got past that moment of near-impasse and

eventually agreed on changes that improve the working conditions, benefits, and

income for all our members.

These changes include significant increases in our salaries, and retroactive payment

of those increases for the period from April 2022 through December 2023. See the

attached “2022-25 Pay grid.”

The deal also includes breakthrough changes in the way non-regular faculty are placed on scale,

and the way private music instructors are paid. Those are both issues on which the CFA and

the employer had long been in stalemate, in round after round of bargaining.

We have increased funding for benefits: both for those of you who are on the benefits

plan, and–for the first time–those who are not yet eligible for the CapU plan. For

those on benefits, the improvements include the employer adding $250 each year to

the Health Care Spending Account (HCSA). For those not yet on benefits, the

employer will provide the CFA with a fund we can use to reimburse you for eligible

health-care expenses.

Last—but not least—the employer has finally agreed to provide some level of

financial compensation for research and scholarship activities from a fund that can

be used to offset teaching sections We will put an equitable application process in

place.

The attached summary lists all of the changes in point form. We encourage you to read it.

The bargaining committee is working on the final paperwork for signature, which we will

post on our website with a new bulletin, so you can read the full text if

you want more detail.

We plan to ask you to ratify the agreement early next week, via the secure method SimplyVoting.

The employer will be seeking ratification from its board of governors

and the B.C. government’s Post-Secondary Employers Association. The sooner we

have ratification, the sooner we will receive our changes in pay and benefits. Apart

from the general wage increase, the employer has committed to providing the retro.

pay within two months of ratification, potentially as soon as February.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement through this long process.

Thank you to the area stewards who provided input along the way.

And a particular thanks to the non-regular committee, Susan Summers, Karen Nakajima,

and Lesley Schimanski, who were invaluable in helping us navigate the complex final

negotiations about scale placement.

In solidarity,

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff

Bargaining Bulletin #18

Dear colleagues,

In our last two bargaining sessions, we have reached agreement on some articles centred on rights language, as well as on changing the academic year to start in September. However, most of our discussion has been about very fine-grained details of our benefits language where we have made incremental gains.

The other most important topic has been non-regular salary scale placement. On this, we are considering options to improve the step placement process, so they can be paid a salary that is closer to what they deserve.

Currently, we are fine-tuning the costing of different proposals and trying to achieve a balance between the few items still under discussion.

We will brief the area stewards in detail on the proposals this coming Tuesday.

In solidarity,

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff

Bargaining Bulletin #17

Detailed update on current Monetary and non-monetary proposals

Dear colleagues, your bargaining committee met with the employer yesterday for two hours, and are meeting again next Wednesday, 25 October.

As we described in our last two bulletins (15 and 16, available here), the employer has now begun to respond to our monetary proposals. We are close to agreement on a number of proposals, including several monetary proposals and the three remaining “non-cost” items. There are, however, two critical monetary proposals on which the employer is still refusing to move:

• Removing the step-5 cap on scale placement for non-regular faculty (after 12 sections of work)

• Updating the dollar limit on paramedical benefits (unchanged since 1995)—even though their own estimate is that increasing the limit per service from $750 to $1,250 would cost CapU a mere $88,500 per year

These are both critical components of the CFA proposals we tabled in January. Despite the employer’s resistance to them, we now see signs that there is room to negotiate. This will take sustained pressure at the negotiating table, but we are hopeful that reason will prevail.

Below is a detailed summary of where things stand: first monetary then non-monetary proposals. You will see more specifics than we usually include in bulletins. At this stage, we want all interested members to be able to see all the details.

 We are going to review the proposals with CFA area stewards on Tuesday, 24 October, before we meet the employer on Wednesday. Our plan is to table a full written response on the remaining proposals. We will also post that response to our website.

Monetary proposals

On 26 September, the employer responded to our monetary package with a set of proposals worth $526,004 of new money for this round, plus proposals for a pot of $140,000 that is carrying over from the last agreement. This was an improvement over the amount of money they had long been claiming as an upper limit. We believe their change of tack is due to support from you, our CFA members, to make real improvements this round.

On 19 October, the employer’s amended proposals went down in value, with no explanation for the change. Their revised proposals are worth (by their own estimate) $473,689. We pointed out the $52,000 deficit. They did not have an explanation for it. We are hoping it was an error in their calculations. We advised that we expect to maintain the total value of the proposals they tabled on 26 September, as we negotiate the specific uses of the money.

Update on monetary proposals

The CFA proposals that the employer is now willing to accept include improvements in benefits, travel funding, and private music instructor pay (details below).

 Their proposal did not include changes to paramedical benefits (which they are still refusing to amend) or the non-reg salary cap (on which they are now expressing willingness to negotiate). On both of those, we again urged the employer to do a more careful comparison of CapU to our sector, while also emphasizing that the University should live up to its current marketing slogans and demonstrate leadership and “courage”—i.e., the willingness to stand out in our sector in some way, even if only to a small degree.

 Summary of CFA monetary proposals the employer is currently agreeing to:

 (a) PMI pay: Increase the hourly rate of pay for private music instructors to reflect 88 hours of direct instruction being the equivalent of a section.

 (b) Benefits–Health Care Account: An annual pot of money placed into the Health Care Spending Account for every employee. The HCSA is an existing part of our benefits package, and can be used for almost any paramedical service as well as other healthcare needs. Under this proposal, all faculty would get the annual amount, not just those on the benefits plan. Unspent money is, however, clawed back into CapU general revenue after two years. On 26 September their proposal was for $425 each year. On 19 October they lowered this to $350, with no explanation. We believe there is enough money available for the original $425/year.

(c) Benefits–Psychological care: Increase the limit on our Canada Life coverage for psychologist care from $1,000/family member/year to $1,500. The employer now says that Counsellor is included in this coverage, and they are willing to add Psychotherapist to it—but with the $1,500 limit for all three services combined. They are not willing to add Counsellor or Psychotherapist to our paramedical services list.

(d) Benefits–Nutritionist added to paramedical coverage. (See the end of this bulletin for the full list of services currently covered by our plan.)

(e) Travel compensation for multi-location work: Improvements for those who work in more than one geographic location, and a more reasonable geographic definition of locations.

(f) They are also offering a one-time amount of money (averaging to $350/person), with its use to be determined.

 Update on the two major points of disagreement:

 (a) Paramedical: The employer has finally provided Canada Life’s estimate of the annual cost of increasing our coverage from $750 to $1,250 per person per year: $88,500. This is a small cost to the employer, relative to the whole package–not to mention CapU’s average annual surplus of $5,000,000. Yet they refuse to agree to this, claiming that our paramedical coverage, which has not changed since 1995, is still the “gold standard” in the province, and therefore should not be improved.

(b) NREG scale placement (removing cap of step 5): Geoff Tierney, the employer’s hired negotiator, claims that step 5 is a higher salary than any other B.C. university or college pays sessionals at top of scale.

• We have collected data from all the other locals. We have shown the employer that their claim is wrong, and asked them to confirm our data. So far they seem to have looked at only one other local—Langara College. They admitted that Langara may pay higher than step 5, but they have yet to make a counter-proposal, or to confirm how other locals pay.

• Because of their resistance to our proposal, we offered an alternative, which they initially seemed interested in: placement on scale at the time of hiring, up to step 5 (currently, placement does not happen until after 12 sections of work). However, they now claim this is prohibitively expensive–it would mean, they suggest, giving up all the other cost items.

• We have asked for detailed costing, so we can see where we have room to negotiate. In short, there is movement on the scale-placement issue, but the movement is slowed by the lack of data from the employer. Ten months into negotiations.

Non-monetary proposals

There are three CFA non-cost proposals still being negotiated (along with 10 already agreed). Here are notes on their status:

 (a) Change academic year to start on 1 September (instead of 1 August). After months of insistence from the employer that regular faculty would have to pay for this change by having a month of income cut, we are finally close to agreement on this.

• They have now proposed that regular faculty will do an extra month of PD in the first year after the change takes effect. There is still a question of timing to work out (i.e., does the new academic year begin in 2024/25?), but we are confident of solving it.

 (b) Diversity on search and dispute resolution committees. One of the CFA’s original proposals was that the chairs of search-hire and dispute resolution committees “make reasonable efforts to include at least one person from a racialized or other equity-deserving group” on committees.

• The employer initially accepted this, but in September backtracked and claimed it was “offensive,” without articulating how. To find a compromise, we offered to rephrase the proposal as “reasonable efforts to have racialized or other equity-deserving groups represented on the committee.”

• The employer claimed it has spent hours on this proposal, and that they lack the expertise to address this issue. We thought the proposal was lost, but yesterday they proposed to try our revised language as a pilot project, adding the language only until the end of the 2024/25 academic year.

 (c) Support people for Indigenous faculty: One of the CFA’s original proposals was for Indigenous faculty to have the right to invite an Elder and a union steward to meetings with administrators. Our goal was to enable the University to develop a culturally and psychologically safe workplace that adapts meaningfully to Indigenous cultures and fully supports faculty members’ needs and rights.

• The employer initially rejected this and other CFA proposals to support Indigenous faculty, unless we agreed to the narrow process the employer proposed for decolonizing our collective agreement (not the University, just our agreement).

• In September the employer withdrew that demand and said they were willing to agree to this proposal—but only if we removed from it the right of Indigenous faculty to have a steward present. 

• We are concerned about this response in light of the resignation over the past few years of 13 Indigenous employees (faculty and staff). We think we need to do more. We are standing behind our original proposal.

We will update you after our meeting next Wednesday.

In solidarity,

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff

See https://www.capilanofaculty.com/bargaining for past bargaining bulletins.

Bargaining Bulletin #16

Negotiation of cost items continues--

Employer promises to do “research” on NREG pay & paramedical

Dear colleagues: We have a shorter update this time, because our negotiations meeting last Friday was a continuation of the meeting on 26 September, which we wrote to you about in BB15. The parties did not table any new items, but we did make some progress on the cost items tabled on the 26th.

The CFA’s main focus on Friday was on moving the employer off of its “no” position on our proposals to:

 * remove the cap on NREG scale placement after 12 sections (no other locals have a cap; many place sessionals on scale at hiring); and

* update the value of our paramedical benefits (which has not changed since 1995).

The good news is that on Friday the employer’s representative, Geoff Tierney, acknowledged the CFA’s evidence that our NREG pay and paramedical benefits are not the “gold standard” in our sector. He has promised to look into how non-regular/sessional faculty are paid at other locals, to confirm the information the CFA has presented. Similarly, Mr Tierney has promised to research details of benefit plans at other locals. This is because of the CapU administration’s concern about standing out in the sector, which it does not want to do.

We were hoping for an update on their research by now, but have not received it yet. We are arranging further negotiating dates, to get specific responses.

Their negotiator’s willingness to check facts is encouraging, relative to the “no” we heard on 26 September. However, it is disappointing that the employer seems not to have done this research earlier. The administration’s refusal to be a leader in the sector did not come up as a limiting factor in our talks from January through the summer. Now that they have raised this inhibition, we have provided evidence to address their fear of “setting a high water mark.” We have also called on the administration to show the leadership and courage that are features of Paul Dangerfield’s messages to us, and of CapU’s “Envisioning 2030” and “Illuminating 2030" plans.

We will continue to advocate for equitable NREG pay and updates to our paramedical benefits, alongside the other CFA proposals on which the parties moved closer to agreement last week. Once the CFA has prepared its written response to the items now on the table, we will share it with all members, so you can see the details.

In solidarity,

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff

 See https://www.capilanofaculty.com/bargaining for past bargaining bulletins.

Bargaining Bulletin #15

Employer finally responds to our monetary proposals: Some progress, but stonewalling on NREG pay and paramedical

Dear colleagues:

Today the CFA received a new set of proposals from the employer. For the first time, they have offered counter-proposals that respond to the original monetary proposals the CFA tabled on 30 January. (See the end of this bulletin for detail about our original proposals and the modified monetary package we tabled in May.)

We are still analysing their proposals, and are going to explore them further in our next meeting, this Friday. There are some significant negatives in what the employer tabled today, but also some positive signs.

 The major negatives are:

 ·     Outright refusal to remove or even change the cap on NREG scale placement after 12 sections of work, or to adjust the secondary scale for lab supervisors. They have the funding for these proposals, but refuse to use it. Removing the NREG placement cap would recognize and respect the commitment faculty make by working 12 sections at CapU, and would bolster recruitment and retention of faculty. But they refuse.

 ·     Refusal to update the limit of $750/service for paramedical coverage, even though this was set in 1995. They claim our benefits are the gold standard—despite 28 years of inflation and other evidence to the contrary.

 ·     Refusal to change the academic year to start on 1 September, unless regular faculty pay for this change by having a month of salary clawed back when they resign or retire. We are baffled by their throwing up barriers to a change that everyone (faculty, staff, administrators including HR) agrees would be a big improvement for CapU.

 ·     Continued resistance to our proposals for research and scholarship. They have retreated to a proposal we rejected last spring, for a revival of a failed, redundant “community-based research” project that would eat up too much of the government money, and likely wind up just going, unused, back into the administration’s general revenue (and annual surpluses).

About the non-reg pay scale proposal: Even though the employer lifted the scale cap from step 8 to step 5 in 2020 (using the pot of government money available at the time), their hired negotiator, Geoff Tierney, says the administration won’t do so now. This is not a government rule. It is a choice that Paul Dangerfield and Kartik Bhardwa are making to deny the value of our most vulnerable employees.

The justification Mr Tierney offered is that “CapU pays NREGs better than other colleges and universities.” They have not provided evidence for this claim. They have not responded to the evidence we have provided that other locals and colleges pay better: No one in our sector has any cap on scale placement; many pay regulars and non-regulars the same (e.g., VCC, Langara, Kwantlen; etc.). The facts do not matter to the employer. We are gathering more evidence that their claim is untrue, in case facts may yet hold some sway.

There has, however, been positive movement on some of the CFA monetary proposals. The employer finally addressed some of our proposals to improve our existing benefits plan and achieve fairer pay. They are willing to provide:

 ·     $425/year for the Health Care Spending Account for every employee—including those not on the benefits plan. We pushed for this instead of their “Wellness Spending Account.” However, the administration still wants to claw back unused amounts after 2 years (rather than transferring them to our spending accounts).

 ·     Higher hourly wage for Private Music Instructors and Private Music Instructors: they have finally accepted our proposal, after years of refusing to address pay for these faculty.

 ·     Increasing Clinical Psychologist coverage from $1,000 to $1,500. The employer has also told us that the existing coverage includes Clinical Counselling (i.e., we already have $1,000 for either psychologist or counsellor care). This was a surprise to us. We asked HR last week when the existing psychologist coverage came to include counselling. They don’t know the answer. Today they said they are still looking into this.

The employer also accepted (finally, after much back-and-forth last spring) our proposal on multi-location work and travel funding, and our proposed committee on vacation banking.

There are other details, of course, and one non-monetary proposal (support for Indigenous faculty) that we are still working on. We will provide more details after we meet with the employer on Friday. We hope that meeting will provide clarity about what they have proposed, and whether they are willing to address the problem of inequitable pay for non-regular faculty.

Proposal details (agreed and under negotiation) on CFA website

Last week we posted on our Bargaining page all of the agreed CFA proposals (signed amendments to the collective agreement): https://www.capilanofaculty.com/blog/bargaining-agreed-proposals

That page also includes, in “CFA proposals – tabled 15 September,” the most recent proposals the CFA tabled on monetary items and non-monetary items. To see the original proposals that both parties tabled on 30 January, see Bargaining Bulletin #3.)

Once we have more details on the proposals the employer tabled today, we will post their proposals and our notes and counter-proposals to the Bargaining page on our site.

In solidarity,

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff

Bargaining: Agreed Proposals

The Bargaining Committee is pleased to share the text of the amendments to the Collective Agreement that the CFA and employer have agreed on so far.

1. Amendments signed on 26 June 06-26 PDF

2. Amendments signed on 15 September 09-15 PDF

The following document, in parts 2 and 3, sets out all of the CFA proposals that we are still trying to negotiate with the employer. (Part 1 lists all of the original CFA proposals that are still part of the negotiations, both those on which we have agreed and those under negotiation.)

1. CFA proposals - tabled 15 September 09-15 CFA proposals PDF

Here are notes on the two documents of signed amendments to the collective agreement. We will provide notes on the third document proposals (still being negotiated) soon. 

"06-26 Agreed" contains: 

• Articles 1.6.3, 11.6.8: “sunset clause” for records of discipline. Such records will be removed from the faculty member’s personnel file after 18 months.

• Article 11.4A: Faculty must be appointed into functional areas. 

• This provision makes explicit that all faculty must be appointed into a functional area with full participation in “article 2.8” collegial decision-making. Administrators don’t directly hire or manage faculty.

• 2.1.8 Clarification of “dean” definition: This cleans up a provision that wasn’t fully updated back in the 1990s, after we codified the collegial model in the collective agreement. 

• (The provision refers to the directors’ grievance settlement. That document allows an administrator other than a dean to perform the dean role in four departments: Sunshine Coast Initiatives; CTE; Indigenous Education and Affairs; and Counselling/Accessibility Services. It also applied to Continuing Studies, but the University has unilaterally shut down that department–an action we are grieving. The agreement creates a fast-track grievance process for directors’ violations of the collective agreement. We are using this now (fall 2023) in response to actions by the Sunshine Coast regional director )

“09-15” contains:

• 8.4.4.3 to 8.4.4.5: Deletion of penalties for NREGs who miss more than 10 duty days. 

• To our knowledge, these penalties have not been applied in recent years. In any event, the penalty seemed unreasonable, so we proposed deleting them.

• 6.8.3 and 6.8.11: Removal of “sectoral workload rule” + “Outside activity” requires departmental approval if it may prevent completion of CapU duties. 

• This change removes the sectoral workload rule in 6.8.11. That rule required special permission for faculty to work more than 9.5 sections in the post-secondary sector.  There was no mechanism for accurate or consistent monitoring of work outside CapU, and this rule only applied to post-secondary, not any other forms of work. It was impractical and inequitable, and only two other colleges or universities have anything similar (and nothing as restrictive as 9.5 sections). 

• This amendment also updates an outdated rule, in 6.8.3, that required the dean’s permission for full-time faculty to take work or engage in studies between 8:30 and 4:30 Monday-Friday.

• Note: In a Frontlines message on 19 September, Mr Bharadwa described this as “Removal of restriction on section loads over an academic term and academic year.” That may lead you to think that the annual overload rules for work at CapU have been removed. Those rules are in a separate article entirely and remain in place.

• 10.8, Cross-reference to other leaves our faculty can use. 

• This is really a “housekeeping” amendment. It just highlights in our CapU collective agreement the other leaves that our faculty have a right to, but which are set out in the “Common Agreement.” The Federation of Post-Secondary Educators (FPSE) negotiates the latter agreement. Our agreement incorporates its terms, including these leaves. 

• 8.4.4.1 “Indigenous identity and lived experience” as a basis for placing a new NREG on scale at the time of hiring. 

• This is one of three proposals we made to support Indigenous faculty. We are still negotiating for the other two. Initially the employer rejected them all unless we agreed to a committee they proposed for “decolonizing the collective agreement.” 

• As we have explained in earlier bulletins, we embraced the idea of a committee—as long as it was an inclusive committee dedicated to decolonizing the entire University. The employer emphatically rejected inclusivity and a university-wide scope. 

• It appeared we would not make headway on our Indigenous faculty proposals, but the employer has now agreed to this one. We have retabled the other two (see part 3 of the “09-15 CFA proposals” document).

• Unsigned items (agreed in principle in bargaining, but at which the employer is now balking):

• “IHR7” - a set of amendments to support diversity of representation on committees and in hiring criteria

• See my earlier message about the change the employer sprang on us during the summer. We think this change is inappropriate.

• “W1” academic year - see earlier note, and BB14.

Bargaining Bulletin #14

Slight movement on monetary negotiations— Hindered by employer’s fear of standing out in our sector

Your bargaining committee met with the employer today, 15 September. We have the following updates for you, and will provide more details in the coming week, including at the general meeting on 19 September. (We don’t think there is a need for an extraordinary meeting on Monday evening, an idea we discussed this past Tuesday.)

 Progress (sort of) on monetary items

We began by retabling the CFA’s monetary proposals. We rejected the employer’s single “cost item” proposal so far: the “wellness sending account” that they tabled on 5 September.

Our message to the employer was to work with us on the specific proposals that the CFA has tabled since the start of negotiations for

• Restoring the lost value of our benefits plan,

• Addressing inequitable pay for non-regular faculty and those with secondary pay rates, and

• Research

These are the priorities members have identified for using the new money B.C. is providing in this round–and for using the surpluses that CapU has been generating annually (now more than $5,000,000 per year averaged over the past decade).

The employer dropped its WSA proposal, and expressed willingness to work on improvements within our existing benefits plan. But they weren’t able to make specific counter-proposals that begin to meet us on our proposals.

The employer's stated reason for hesitancy to improve paramedical and other existing benefits (which have not changed since 1995) was a reluctance to stand out in the sector. They do not want to set a high-water mark that might make other universities or colleges feel pressure to improve.

They offered similar hesitancy about removing the cap on non-reg scale placement, suggesting that CapU already pays non-regular faculty better than others in our sector. (The evidence we have seen is to the contrary.)

Negotiator Geoff Tierney also spoke of having “multiple principals.” But when we asked him whether the B.C. government–one of those principals–has directed the University not to improve benefits or to change scale placement rules, he sidestepped, merely speaking of “sectoral pressures.”

From what the CFA has seen in other negotiations, it is apparent that there is room to improve benefits For example, three locals have obtained coverage in the range of $2,000 to $2,500/year for psychotherapy, counselling, and social work. (The CapU administration has so far resisted our proposal to increase  psychotherapy/clinical counselling coverage above the current $1,000.) In short, other colleges and universities are negotiating changes to their benefits plans that already set new “high-water marks.” That is what negotiations are for, especially in a round in which the government is providing free money to the university.

To repeat: there is an annual amount of $253,000 from the government for changes negotiated now, as long as the money does not go towards a general wage increase. On top of that, we obtained funding from the government last round that  gives us an extra $100,000 a year to work with. And the employer’s negotiator has repeatedly acknowledged that CapU can spend more than these new amounts. In fact, the administration is free to use its own operational budget for cost items, which is also what negotiations are for: deciding what changes to make, using the University’s revenues for cost items. Again, CapU’s average annual surplus for the past decade is more than $5,000,000. They just choose not to use their revenue: they are (so far) expressly refusing to spend more than the new money from the government.

Non-cost items: how do you feel about a monthly pay cut in 2024/25?

During the meeting, we signed off on several of the CFA proposals we had been negotiating in the spring. (These are all CFA proposals, since the employer withdrew its proposals in April, most of which were about deleting the collegial decision-making model and union support.) We also discussed four “non-cost” proposals that are still unresolved.

One of these is about Elder and union steward support for Indigenous faculty. On this, the employer is resisting a right for Indigenous faculty to have a union steward present during meetings with administrators, though they are willing to agree to our proposal for an Elder or knowledge keeper at such meetings.

The most contentious non-cost item is one that we thought the employer would welcome: changing the academic year to September-August, replacing the current August-July. Among other things, this would avoid the complications caused by the last month of the summer term being in the next academic year.

To our surprise last spring, the employer had raised an undefined “transition” concern with this proposal. In June they proposed referring the question to committee rather than changing the academic year. Today we asked them for an actual counter-proposal.

Their response was surprising: in the view of the HR department, changing the academic year would cost the University administration $3,000,000. This is because they see it as giving regular faculty an extra month of pay, over the course of their careers at CapU.

The employer’s solution? To reduce regular faculty members’ monthly income in the first academic year of the new agreement. They suggested spreading regular faculty income in that year over 13 months, to save the administration from paying a (theoretical) extra month of pay in the future, when the member retires or resigns. For an RFT at step 1, this would reduce their monthly income by more than $650/month for 13 months.

We see this “solution” as unnecessary: we see it as penalizing faculty now to pay for a theoretical future cost. We explained this perspective to the employer. We hope the University will withdraw is “transition” concern. Your committee will continue to argue that embracing this change to the academic year is beneficial for the University as a whole, and that making regulars pay for the theoretical future cost is not reasonable.

We will update you on progress on monetary proposals and the academic year as soon as we can.

 In solidarity,

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff

Bargaining Bulletin #13

Employer ignores members’ priorities with its monetary proposal

Your bargaining committee met with the employer’s committee on 5 September. We received their proposal for “monetary items,” in response to proposals we first tabled on 30 January and simplified into a package of monetary items on 29 May.

The employer’s proposal ignores all of the CFA’s original proposals. Instead it invents a “Wellness Spending Account” that ignores the priorities you have brought to your union. This “WSA” would put $450 aside annually for each member who is on the benefits plan, to which they can apply for reimbursement of certain expenses, such as ski passes; gym memberships; programs for smoking cessation, weight loss or addictions; and books/courses on “wellness related topics.” Reimbursement would be taxed.

This proposed WSA ignores the problems with our existing benefits plan, which was once a gold standard but has not changed (even in the dollar limits for paramedical services) since 1995. It ignores the inequitable salaries of non-regular faculty, private music instructors, and lab supervisors. It ignores the need for release for research and scholarship to be part of the income of faculty who wish to fulfil the University’s supposed scholarly mandate.

The CFA’s monetary proposals addressed those problems and needs. We based the proposals on the priorities you, our members, identified in bargaining surveys and in various focus groups. We have talked with the employer about the importance to our members of addressing these monetary priorities. And we have underscored the challenge of recruiting and retaining faculty given the barriers preventing fair pay for non-regulars and others, the loss of value of our benefits, and the lack of salary support for scholarship.

The employer’s proposal sidesteps the CFA proposals. It sidesteps our members’ priorities. We think it is unacceptable.

We also see their proposal as a waste of an opportunity. The B.C. government is offering universities and colleges a “pot” of money for proposals that would increase annual expenses (see our bulletin #9). In this round, that pot is an annual amount of $253,000–but the government will only provide that money if the CapU administration and union agree on how to spend it.

We hoped the employer would embrace this opportunity to support research and scholarship, remove the illogical cap on NREG scale placement (placement that does not occur until after a year and a half of full-time work), and at least partly restore the value three decades of inflation have eaten from our benefits plan.

Instead they have proposed to eat up the provincial money with taxable reimbursement for certain faculty of certain kinds of “wellness” expenses.

We advised the employer that this proposal is not acceptable. We insisted on negotiating proposals that actually meet our members’ needs and improve the University. We are preparing a written response to retable our proposals, but won’t know whether the employer is willing to rethink its WSA idea until we meet with them on 15 September.

In solidarity, Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff

See https://www.capilanofaculty.com/bargaining (or Bulletins page) for past bargaining bulletins. And see topic 3 of bulletin #7 for details about the general wage increase for all faculty, which is a provincial mandate that isn’t subject to negotiation at our local table.

Bargaining Bulletin #12

Still waiting for employer’s response on monetary proposals

Dear colleagues:

Dear members: We were hoping to have news today about the employer’s response to the CFA’s monetary proposals. Unfortunately, the employer cancelled the meeting originally set for today, so we won’t meet with them until the morning of Tuesday, 5 September.

We have been waiting for the employer’s response to our revised monetary proposals since we first tabled them on 29 May. These proposals are simplified versions of proposals we tabled at the start of negotiations on 30 January. They include restoring the value of our benefits and other benefits improvements; fairer scale placement for non-regular faculty; removal of unreasonable secondary pay rates for some faculty; and funding for research and scholarship. We expected a response on 1 June, but the employer cancelled that meeting. Then in our meetings on 5, 26, and 29 June the employer advised it was still not ready to respond.

On 29 June the employer’s representative led us to expect a written response during the summer, on which we could work together in the next bargaining meeting. We did not receive this response. Nor has the employer provided the financial information we need to do a thorough cost evaluation of proposals.

We have advised the employer that we expect a substantive response to our monetary package when we meet with its committee on 5 September.

We have already reached agreement on several of the CFA’s “non-cost” proposals, and there are several more non-cost proposals on which we are close to agreement. The monetary package is the main item remaining--but of course it is a significant one. We remain hopeful that the employer’s delay is due to its analysis of the cost of these proposals, relative to the pool of money the B.C. government is providing colleges and universities for cost items.

We hope to have better news for you after the meeting on 5 September.

In solidarity,

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff

Bargaining Bulletin #11

Still waiting for employer’s response on monetary proposals.

Bargaining continued on June 26th and 29th. While we continue to exchange proposals on such things as vacation banking and sectoral workload guidelines, progress on the items the CFA identified in our monetary proposals of May 29th has been slow. This is disappointing, since we requested financial information months ago—a standard practice in the bargaining process. The information we requested was designed to position us to make the best proposals possible, but the administration has been giving us information slowly and in a piecemeal fashion, and we have not yet received the complete details that would enable us to do a full cost analysis.

Further, and as we have mentioned in earlier bulletins, “cost items” often involve the most delicate discussions at the negotiating table. We tabled a set of CFA monetary proposals on May 29th, simplifying and reducing the proposals we originally presented on January 30th. The employer was not ready to respond during our next scheduled meeting, on June 1st. At their request, we cancelled that meeting so they could use the time to prepare. After they were still not ready to respond in the negotiation meeting on June 5th, we expected a response at our June 26th meeting. Counter-proposals were not, unfortunately, forthcoming at that meeting nor at our June 29th meeting (much of which was spent in caucus while the employer drafted language on a single non-cost proposal).

We are now into a summer hiatus, with the next bargaining session scheduled for the end of August.

The late-June bargaining sessions dealt largely with language around banking vacation time and the acknowledgement that many people are working well beyond their contractual obligation.

While progress has been slow, particularly around monetary (a.k.a. cost) items, the employer has acknowledged that they are not opposed “in principle” to various of our proposals. This is encouraging, but leaves us waiting for actual counter-proposals that will address such issues as release for research and scholarship, scale placement for non-regulars, updating inequitable pay for private music instructors and lab supervisors, and improvements in benefits coverage (an item recently successfully bargained at Selkirk College).

While progress on monetary items has been slow, we look forward to the resumption of bargaining later this summer and to the opportunity to bring discussions around the many important items still on the table to a close.

In solidarity,

Bargaining Committee members Tim Acton, Doug Alards-Tomalin, Eduardo Azmitia, Michael Begg, and FPSE representative Monica Staff